


Baby Books

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 01:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15304770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: Scully has a baby book for each of her children.





	Baby Books

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

_One_

Scully knows she’s not supposed to do it.  But considering all the ways she’s flouted protocols by now, she doesn’t think this one should even raise eyebrows, this taking away a small pink book that doesn’t belong to anyone, anymore.

She brings it home, back to Washington, tucked into her carry-on, and she really looks at it for the first time once she’s alone in her apartment.  It’s got flowers on the cover, and a picture of a rattle, and printed words, ______’s Baby Book.  Emily_ , someone has written in the blank, in handwriting that’s not hers.

She thumbs through the pages, taking stock of all the moments that she should have had the chance to see.  Someone has filled in the book’s provided blanks, Emily’s length and weight across the months, when she started eating solid foods, walking, talking.  They’ve put in additions too: the day Emily came home with the Sims is written below her birthdate, and there are notes on her illness.  And there are pasted-in pictures.  Emily, round-headed and bald, staring at the camera with a blank expression.  Emily on her first birthday, with fair curls under a party hat, sticking a hand into the cake.

Scully can’t even tell herself what she’s hoping to get out of this, but she keeps reading it.  She wraps herself in the blankets of her bed, burrowing down, looking through the baby book again and again.

Mulder catches her with it once, a few months in, when he comes over to talk about a case.  “Scully,” he says, so softly, and she could break through the barriers between them easily at this moment, if she wanted to.

“Don’t,” she says, shoving the book into the nearest drawer, closing it firmly.  And he doesn’t.

She could take it out when he leaves, but she tells herself she’d better not.  It sits there.  She finds ways not to open that drawer.

 

_Two_

Scully keeps William’s baby book carefully, for Mulder, so he’ll be able to read it when he comes back.  It’s one her mother gave her, right before William was born, with Beatrix Potter animals on the cover.  _My First Year_ , it says, and inside there’s a space for the baby’s name and the parents’ names.  She fills them in neatly, precisely, William’s and Mulder’s and hers.

She puts in pictures, William in his cradle, William in her arms, William clutching a stuffed bear at Christmas, William looking at snow for the first time.  She writes notes on how he grows, on his babbling and sitting up and starting to crawl.  She puts in a little wisp of his hair.  She writes about that face he makes, the one that always makes her think of Mulder.  She doesn’t write about threats or abductions or being afraid.

The last time she opens the book, she’s sitting in the middle of the living room floor, in the space where William’s bouncy seat used to be.  She doesn’t know why she opens it, except that she’s been awake for thirty-seven hours and isn’t thinking that clearly.  She doesn’t want to read it.  She looks at the cover— _My First Year_ —they didn’t even make it that far.  She goes to put it somewhere she can’t find it, and she opens the first drawer she sees, and there’s the other one, the other baby book, staring up at her.  She holds one in each hand.  She doesn’t know whether to clutch them to her or throw them on the floor.  She wants to get rid of them.  She wants to set them on fire.  She wants to never let them go.  She flips through them, and cries, and eventually falls asleep with her head against the side of the couch.

The next day she takes them to the storage unit.  She doesn’t want them in her apartment anymore, or maybe she doesn’t deserve to have them there.  She leaves them, in there with some of Mulder’s things, the ones they put away for when he comes back.  She isn’t sure if she still believes he will.  She isn’t sure there’s any reason to store any of this.  But she closes the door and goes.

The baby books come with them, when they open the storage unit again and move into their house.  She knows Mulder sees them, knows he looks through William’s.  They never talk about it.

She gives it to her son, years later, on a day when he comes into the house and finds her taping all the lower kitchen cabinets shut.  “What are you doing?” he asks.  “Trying to keep Mulder from eating your snacks?”

She stands up and gives him a hug, which he lets her do.  “Hi, Jackson.  No, I’m just baby-proofing.  Susanna’s started crawling.”

“Oh,” he says.  “They do that already?  This little, I mean.”

“Believe it or not,” Scully says.  “She’s on the early side of the curve, but nothing outrageous.  You were a little early too.”

“I was?” he asks, sounding curious, almost wistful.

She nods.  He looks like he wants her to tell him more, and she’s not sure where to start.  And then she is. 

She knows where the book is, of course, on a shelf in Mulder’s office, and she takes it down and gives it to him.  “Peter Rabbit,” he says with a half-smile, looking at the cover, and then he opens it and starts reading. 

He seems to be intent on the book, only making the occasional comment and not really acknowledging her answers, but she doesn’t go back to the cabinets.  She sits there next to him, just in case.

 

_Three_

When it comes to Susanna, Mulder is a meticulous documenter, starting even before she’s born.  He saves things—the ultrasound photos, her hat from the hospital, her first tiny booties.  He takes endless pictures and videos.  And he gets a baby book with both fill-in-the-blanks and empty pages for writing, with a baby in a cradle on the front.  On their first night home with Susanna, after they’ve put her down to sleep, Scully goes to take a bath and comes back into the bedroom to find him writing an extended treatise.  She peeks at it; it looks like a letter to their daughter, describing the events of the past few days.  “We should sleep,” she tells him gently, settling into the bed next to him. 

“Soon,” he promises, writing away.

He keeps it up over the months that follow, writing about Susanna’s first smile, her fondness for pureed carrots, when she starts to call them Mama and Dada and take tentative steps.  He marks the date of each tooth she cuts on a special chart.  He always has some form of camera around.

“Why are you filming this?” Scully asks him one night when she’s trying to get a grouchy Susanna to eat and go to sleep.  She can tell that she sounds pretty grouchy herself.  “What are you, her press agent?”  Susanna wails and tugs at her shirt, and Scully sighs and starts unbuttoning.  Susanna’s made it clear that she’s not fully on board with this milk from a cup idea her parents have recently introduced, and tonight they’re both too tired to deal with the fuss.

“Sorry,” he says, putting the video camera down.   “Do you want me to clean up?”

“It’s not that,” Scully says, settling Susanna against her to nurse.  “I’m just not sure what it is about this moment that’s so enthralling.”

His voice is quiet when he answers.  “It’s…I don’t want to miss anything.”

She watches him, wondering what to say.  “Come here,” she says, finally, and he goes to them, putting an arm around her shoulders, using his other hand to take one of Susanna’s.  She leans her cheek against his as they both watch their daughter.  “We have to let her live her life,” she says, softly.  She’s not just talking about videos and baby books.  She’s not just talking about Mulder.  She thinks, from the way he looks at her, that he knows that.

Susanna pulls away from the breast and looks up at them, a mixture of milk and drool dribbling down her chin.  She sneezes, only adding to the mess, and then, before they can get wind of what she has in mind, buries her face in Scully’s sweater.  “Oh, what are you doing?” Scully asks her, carefully modulating her voice so that it sounds more sing-song than irritated.  “Now you stop that.”  She lifts Susanna away.  “Mulder, could you get me a…?”

“Already on it,” he says, handing her a wet towel.  “Now this would make quite a photograph.”

“Don’t you dare,” she says, but she’s laughing in spite of herself, as she mops up herself and their daughter, and Mulder starts laughing too, and even Susanna is giggling happily, no longer grouchy. 

“Oh, she knows what she did,” Mulder says, taking Susanna from her.  “You know what you did, don’t you?”

“She does,” Scully says.  “We’re going to have to watch ourselves.”

“Baby’s First Prank?” Mulder says, looking thoughtful.

“I don’t think that’s a category in the book.”

“Well,” he says, “with this one, maybe it should be.”


End file.
